


Leaning

by L56895



Series: Kinktober [7]
Category: Final Fantasy X-2
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kinktober, Kinktober 2018, Object Insertion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 14:53:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16266497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L56895/pseuds/L56895
Summary: Paine helps clean Nooj's prosthetics.





	Leaning

**Author's Note:**

> This is possibly a prequel of sorts to my fic for Day 8!

Despite her hardest attempts, it was impossible not to feel drawn to him; he kept his distance from their group, brooding quietly in the corner of the tent that had been pitched for the recruits at the base in Bikanel. He had barely spoken to her in that first week, only to confirm his name for her initial recordings. She had already known him, of course, the stories of Nooj the Undying rippled anywhere soldiers gathered, but she was shrewd enough to know that a man who had become infamous through injuries that severe did not want to be reminded.

Still, she sought him out most evenings, if only to offer one of the better morsels she swiped from the food tent. At first he sent her away, claiming he was satisfied with the share he had taken towards the end of food service, but she noticed him watching her when he thought she wasn’t looking. His face was impenetrable, but sometimes she could have sworn she saw the twitch of a smile playing across his lips.

Then, he would linger near her; sometimes sitting across from her on the bench, sometimes simply stopping to check her weapon was properly loaded for the day ahead. He had a brusque way about him, not speaking unless necessary, but she recognised the attempt to reach out from a fellow lost soul.

She was waiting for him to find her one evening after a particularly drawn out skirmish in the desert. Another team of recruits had panicked, bombarded them until their ammunition ran out, then watched in horror as Nooj stepped out from behind their cover and berated them with a clip of his machina fist against their skulls. She had lost sight of him soon after they returned to camp and felt a pang of concern when he didn’t arrive for supper, although their recent adversaries were nursing their bruised egos in a far corner.

Eventually, she found him a distance from the encampment, cursing with his leg propped up on a rock in front of him. He had braced his back against the wall of rock behind him, the camp had been set up in a sort of desert quarry-site, and when he spotted her approach he leant his head back against the stone, face set in grim defeat.

“Need a hand?”

He gestured to the mechanism that made up his left knee. Gripped in his right hand she noticed a small can of some sort, remembered Gippal’s complaints about a youth spent clearing sand out of machina parts.

“This damn sand,” he started, shook his head. She stepped forward and, without a word, crouched down to inspect his leg. Gippal had taught her the basics of desert machina care after finding her close to throwing the rudimentary sphere recorder against the rocks and now as she touched Nooj’s thigh she tried to focus on the metal and ignore their closeness. Taking the can of oil from his hand, she worked out the fine grains of sand with the pads of her fingers, blowing gently to shift the more stubborn particles. Then the oil, poured sparingly in to the joint until she felt the smooth shift of his calf under her hand as he flexed experimentally. When she finally met his eye, taking a long moment to compose her features before she looked up at him, he was staring at her with lips parted.

“Other than my sphere recorder I’ve never been this close to machina,” she murmured, although she wasn’t sure what possessed her to say it. Maybe just to break the awed silence that radiated from him. Slowly, he seemed to come back to life; running his left hand through her hair before pulling her up with a firm grip on her forearms. It felt natural to step in to his embrace, to feel his arms fold around her, and she felt a fluttering in the pit of her stomach.

Straddling his leg, she buried her hands in his hair and breathed in the scent of him, that strange mix of regulation soap and oil. He held her very still, hand splayed out against her back, until she felt his living hand creep down to cup her behind. Letting out a gasp, she stirred against him, rubbed herself against his thigh. In response, he let his hand fall to the buckles that kept her shorts in place, loosened them, and slipped his hand inside to caress the newly exposed skin. There was no hiding the feelings he churned up inside her as his fingers explored, slick against her, but still she turned her face against his cheek and tried to still her heavy breaths. She let out a plaintive moan when he withdrew his hand, heard his soft laugh against her ear.

When he started caressing her with his machina hand she pressed her palms to his cheeks to steady herself; he kept his eyes firmly set on her, lips parted, and she struggled to keep herself from falling. Any of her previous encounters had always been quick, functional, in dark rooms in whatever lodgings she had taken. Never had a man watched her so intently as he pleasured her, never had she been this close to something so forbidden as machina, as enigmatic as Nooj. When he slipped a metal finger inside of her she let out a low moan, pushed herself closer to his hand. She wanted so desperately to kiss him, but she couldn’t bring herself to break the spell between them. It was a delirious sensation, at once cold against the hottest part of her and yet so much a part of the living him.

Finally he kissed her. One soft touch of his lips against hers; strangely chaste considering where his hand was. His eyes never left hers, even as he brought her to the brink. He was hypnotic, watching her as if she were a lifelong obsession, and when she reached her peak his pupils dilated at the sight of her. Only then did he kiss her fully, hungrily, and they clung to one another until the chill of the desert night became too much to bear.

The next day she stopped him from killing himself.


End file.
